The Inter American Convention against Corruption (the "Convention") responds to the conviction by the Signatary States that corruption in public function (under article 1 of the Convention "Public function" means any temporary or permanent, paid or honorary activity, performed by a natural person in the name of the State or in the service of the State or its institutions, at any level of its hierarchy") -this is the kind of corruption it refers toþ causes important damage to what, under generic terms could be called the State's social and political tissue, in its widest sense; that their combat strengthens them (most particularly the democratic institutions); that the very same nature of corruption þand successful combat against itþ requires cooperation efforts between States in order that the same may effectively get rid of impunity, and such coordinated action being also necessary because corruption "þhas international dimensions" (Preamble to the Convention).

1 The political interest of the Convention, as well as the social and cultural interests it shows, is something that may only be enunciated here. This interest resides, on the one hand, in the fact that the States Parties to the Convention may have identified corruption in the performance of public functions as a ground for serious instability and as a hazard to representative democracy and, by extension, to the region's stability, peace and development. On the other hand þand in view of the entity's hidden nature assigned by them to the phenomenon of corruptionþ it resides in the exercise of public functions and in the promptly and successful arrival at cooperation actions to be, essentially, implemented on a technical and legal level, and, notably, with regard to the latter, in the States Parties' internal legislation.

The purpose of this review is not to speculate over the efficiency of this Convention; however, it seems reasonable for any one subsequently reviewing such efficiency to observe the Convention's reiterated remission to the States Parties' domestic law and procedure, the circumstance that the latter may be legally prevented from following all the guidelines drawn by the Convention and, essentially and in fact þand this would be the indicated social and cultural aspect that the very same nature of corruption in public function reduces the degree of effectiveness that the Convention may have in order to fight such corruption.

The Convention's social and cultural interest, from another point of view, in the circumstance that its approval is an evidence of the alarming dimension reached by corruption in the exercise of public functions.

2 The Convention's legal interest lies, among other, on the following aspects:

2.1 The Convention describes the acts of corruption in the performance of public function (the States Parties shall typify the corresponding acts based on such description). In addition of, eventually, transnational bribery and unlawful enrichment, the following are, under the Convention, acts of corruption in the exercise of public function:

a. The improper use by a government official or a person who performs public functions, for his own benefit or that of a third party, of any kind of classified or confidential information, which that official or person who performs public functions has obtained because of, or in the performance of, his functions;
b. The improper use by a government official or a person who performs public functions, for his own benefit or that of a third party, of any kind of property belonging to the State or to any firm or institution in which the State has a proprietary interest, to which that official or person who performs public functions has access because of, or in the performance of, his functions;
c. Any act or omission by any person who, personally or through a third party, or acting as an intermediary, seeks to obtain a decision from a public authority whereby he illicitly obtains for himself or for another person any benefit or gain, whether or not such act or omission harms State property; and
d. The fraudulent use or concealment of property proceedings from any of the acts to which this article refers,
e. The participation as author, coauthor, instigator, accomplice, accessory or any other form in the commission, association or confabulation for the commission of any of the acts to which the present article refers.

The acts of corruption that, to a large extent have already been typified as crimes by the Venezuelan legal system (Organic Law for the Safeguard of Public Property, 1982) that was also enacted in consideration of the "seriousness and extension of administrative corruptionþ with the inner consideration of the serious damage to public propertyþ" in order that competent authorities could have "a firmer, more energetic and efficient ground of support to face such a serious problem". in the words of Alberto Arteaga Sánchez þLos delitos contra la Cosa Pública en la Ley Orgánica de Salvaguarda del Patrimonio Público, 1983þ once the punishable nature of the corresponding conduct shall have been established by the domestic law these [crimes] may be qualified, by virtue of their description in the herein reviewed international legal document and of the interstate cooperation contemplated by it, as being part of the so called delicta juris gentium. . One is dealing with "punishable actions that, although they have been established as such by national legal systems they affect the interests of the States, crimes that, as the case may be, violate legal values protected by the States for the benefit of its nationals; a protection that the whole set of States deems required because these values are exposed to hazards by virtue of certain conducts (drug traffic, for instance). The International Conventions that have been entered in relation with these crimes, precisely aims at the formalization of international solidarity. This solidarity may be evidenced by the implementation of international cooperation measures to fight a specific crime (this would be the case of the reviewed Convention) or by the establishment of certain criteria to enrich and/or modify the principles for the application of domestic criminal law. It is thus that all of them, in all cases, are a proof of the ethical element that is present also in Public International Law. This ethical element is non other than, in Friedrich Berber's words (Lehrbuch,Des Voelkerrechts), "the guarantee of the fulfillment of law" (Hans -Joachim Leu, Introducción al Derecho Internacional Penal, 1982). Any way, it is obvious that the phenomenon of corruption in the performance of public functions shows a nature that is extraordinarily dissimilar to that of other crimes being part of the delicta iuris gentium þa trend in the evolution of Public International Law that deserves some thoughtþ such as, other than the already mentioned crimes of printing counterfeit money and drug traffic, the trade of obscene publications, slave traffic, and the exploitation of the prostitution of others.
2 The Convention provides that "Each of the offenses to which this article applies shall be deemed to be included as an extraditable offense in all extradition treaty existing between or among the States Parties. The States Parties undertake to include such offenses as extraditable offenses in every extradition treaty to be concluded between or among them. (article XIII, Paragraph 2 ).

The initial impression notwithstanding, in the sense that this text of the Convention will facilitate the delivery of persons required for corruption in the performance of a public function, and notwithstanding either the fact that the same article XIII (paragraph 3) provides that "If a State Party that makes extradition conditional on the existence of a treaty receives a request for extradition from another State Party with which it does not have an extradition treaty, it may consider this Convention as the legal basis for extradition with respect to any offense to which this article applies" and that "States Parties that do not make extradition conditional on the existence of a treaty shall recognize offenses to which this article applies as extraditable offenses between themselves" (paragraph 4), one must remember that States, as a general rule, do subject extradition to a treaty and that, generally, they consider the issue of extradition as something, most particularly representative of the exercise of the attributes of sovereignty, and these are reasons that raise doubts on an easy application of the Convention's article XIII. One should remember, emphasizing on the remark, the scarce response, as to ratification, given to the Inter American Convention on Extradition þnotwithstanding the fact that, in a good measure, it ratifies the criteria that have been sustained traditionally by the States on these issuesþ and the prohibition to extradite nationals, imposed by domestic law in several States.
3. Article XVII of the Convention ("Nature of the Act") seems to suggest that the Convention limits, in some way, the right of asylum, be it territorial asylum or diplomatic asylum, since it apparently narrows the conceptual limits of political crime or of the common crime connected with a political crime. The very same drafting of the article leads to such opinion (þshall not suffice by themselves to be considered ...) but it does not bind to hold such opinion. In all events, the fact that States do offer territorial asylum "þin exercise of their sovereigntyþ" (Declaration on Territorial Asylum adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1967), makes it unnecessary to clarify here the wide room for discretionary power awarded to State sovereignty, and the fact that "it is for the State granting the asylum to qualify the nature of the crime and the motives of the persecution" (Convention on Diplomatic Asylum, Caracas, 1954) do not afford room to see important changes with regard to the right of asylum.

Translation by Carlos Armando Figueredo>/a>

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